We're Becoming Invisible

When young, I enjoyed science writing (Asimov) and science fiction (Asimov and Heinlein). The Drake equation computes the probability that there are other civilizations in the universe. An article in yesterday's Times revisits the equation and concludes that it stands up well. But the kicker at the end is that we, i.e., Earth, as a civilization are becoming invisible.

But the trend might be in the opposite direction, if humans are any indication, he noted. Earth first became detectable in the 1950s, he said, when the planet was full of powerful television and radar transmitters beaming and leaking gigawatts of power into space.

“We assumed that was the way it was always going to be,” both for us and, by extension, for extraterrestrials, he said. But now the big transmitters are being phased out in favor of cable and satellites that leak hardly anything at all out to space. It’s very economical and it’s the wave of the future. Earth is gradually going radio quiet.

“That’s big change nobody anticipated,” he said. Once the big powerful transmitters go off the air, he said, “We will still exist but we will be hard to detect.”

Reverting to the Permanent Law

Prior posts have been skeptical of the practicality of reverting to the 1949 and 1938 farm legislation. USDA has released an analysis of the overall situation, including these words:

for the 2008 crop of wheat, the 1938 Act still requires the Secretary to establish acreage allotments since these allotments are part of the price support program established for wheat under the 1949 Act. One of the critical factors which the 1938 Act requires the Secretary to take into account when establishing a farm's 2008 wheat allotment is whether or not the farm had an allotment in 1958. Acreage allotments for wheat have not been declared since 1971 and USDA does not possess acreage reports dating back to 1971. Accordingly, it is unclear how USDA could meaningfully translate these historical allotments, while taking into account other required provisions in the 1938 Act, into 2008-crop price support benefits.

FSA In NYTimes

The Farm Service Agency made the op-ed pages of the Times today. Jack Hedin, a MN farmer, grew fruits and vegetables on land rented from a farmer. Only problem was, the provisions of the farm program prevent growing fruits and vegetables on cropland used to establish the acres for payment.

Mr. Hedin is reasonably clear and reasonably correct--voicing his outrage about the penalties for such growing and the idea that organized fruit and vegetable growers in CA, etc. could restrict his opportunities.

He fails to note the irony that supporters of community-supported agriculture (i.e., locavores) regularly criticize the farm program for not helping fruit and vegetable growers. This provision, which has been around for 20 odd years, does help them--but like most of the rest of the farm program provisions, it helps established farmers, slowing down changes.

It's an open issue whether Mr. Hedin's landowners shouldn't have known the problem--they did, after all, sign contracts that stated that provision. But likely they're old "widow-women", as we used to chauvinistically say, who left the legal stuff to their now deceased husbands and were just trying to help out an up and coming organic farmer.

The "Royal Assent" to Our North

I've sort of envied the Canadian system of government--tracking their agricultural programs it seems as if the ruling party can move faster and make decisions with less parliamentary input than in the U.S. (Of course, that's a bureaucrat's dream--no need to suck up to those @#$%'s in Congress.)

But, as this piece observes in passing, they do at times need to get Queen Elizabeth's assent (at least by proxy).

USDA and Civil Rights

USDA won't talk to GAO?

Some kerfuffle, apparently about:

The auditors were seeking information for an ongoing audit on Agriculture's office of civil rights and its handling of discrimination complaints. Specifically, they were investigating allegations that the department had previously provided false information for the audit.

We're Poorer Today

Got my property tax assessment yesterday--down $70K. That's about a 25 percent drop. It reinforces my belief that, at least in my small part of the world, immigration had a positive effect on housing values. And the end of immigration, at least at past levels, because of the agitation against illegals and the collapse of the housing bubble is proof. So when I see that Prince William County is talking of a 28 percent increase in the property tax rate to compensate for their drop in values, I'm somewhat ambivalent. On the one hand, PW is getting what they asked for--fewer immigrants, meaning more foreclosures, more empty houses, lower property values. On the other hand, it's a hell of a way to run a country.

Farm Bill Prospects

Politico has a good summary article on the farm bill, including the reasons for the direct payments and the possible jeopardy they now put the farm bill in. (Ironically, if the WTO hadn't forced us into direct payments, and the Republicans hadn't sold them as a free market transition, we would now have much freer agriculture under the provisions of the 1990 farm bill.)

They also have an elaborate list of possible bookmarks and sharing sites. One of these days I'm going to have to learn the process. (Or maybe I just give up and admit either life is speeding up or I'm slowing down.)

Psychology as a Science

Article in the New Yorker that's very interesting on the physiological basis for humans knowing numbers (size comparisons, arabic numerals, words). (The article is probably available only for a limited time.) A couple things of note:

• Chinese (Mandarin) has a better mapping of number words (i.e., seven, thirteen, twenty-five) to arabic numerals than does English (presumably instead of "thirteen", they say "one three") which is more efficient.
• there's at least one instance in which the hero of the piece (number researcher) made a valid prediction--he used computer chips to model how the mind operates with numbers. His modeling included a physical feature that was unknown, but was later discovered through advanced CAT scans.) The best test of a science is prediction, so psychology is getting better.
  

Bill Buckley--Post Obit Changes?

Buckley died and the obits are coming out:

The National Review defended the Vietnam War, opposed civil rights legislation and once declared that "the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail." Buckley also had little use for the music of the counterculture, once calling the Beatles "so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of antimusic."

That bit from the Washington Post describes good reasons to be against him. But I had a personal prejudice--he was a show-off, using words to impress and rub one's nose in one's ignorance. I give him that over time he even came to be friendly with Arthur Schlesinger and he opposed the John Birch Society. But IMHO he gave wealth a bad name.

[Update] It's interesting--I linked to the Post obit about an hour ago (12:30) and got the quote above. Left the post as a draft and went off to do some PC maintenance. Now, at 1:26 pm, the paragraph reads:

In its early years, National Review attacked any and all U.S. policies it perceived as concessions to communism, condemned what it called "the welfare state" and defended the South's resistance to racial integration. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the National Review was one of only a few to criticize President John F. Kennedy for his deal with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev not to invade Cuba in exchange for removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba. [Actually, the "deal" was not announced then, its existence has since been established by historians, so Buckley's crew was accusing JFK of doing a deal and ahead of the curve. Had the deal been announced, JFK would have lost considerable support.]

I think the omissions of the quotes makes it less critical and the missile crisis bit gives NR a bit of credit for knowing what was happening. Wonder why the change?
(Suppose I should label this post: "unfunny" as I'm criticizing the dead.)

Whoever Said Conservatives Are Heartless

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution promise to quash the poor, but all in aid of a suffering conservative.